Researcher lectures on the timetable for upper-secondary students

Almost 500 upper-secondary students from schools in the Uppsala region, Enköping and Sala attended the popular science lectures at the Faculty of Science and Technology. The students listened to researchers explaining current issues and research methods in the fields of physics and astronomy, earth sciences and the climate, mathematics and information technology, engineering, chemistry and biology.

At the Evolutionary Biology Centre, Gesa Weyhenmeyer gave a lecture on how Earth’s lakes are responding to a rapidly changing global environment. Weyhenmeyer, a professor in aquatic biogeochemistry, received lengthy applause and elicited a great many questions from the audience.

Tovalie Gradin Salo and Molly Grönlund, both 16 years of age and studying in the science programme at Amerikanska Gymnasiet in Uppsala, enjoyed the lecture.

“Of course, we already knew that our lakes are not in great shape but not the reasons it is actually happening, so it was very interesting to learn more,” said Tovalie.

Molly had already made up her mind to be an engineer, although she was still unsure of which field. Tovalie enjoyed biology and thought it would be great to read the subject. That said, her career choice remained unclear. According to their teacher, Fredrik Norrström, the class is currently reading Biology 1, so the lecture was highly suitable.

Maja Garde Lindholm, coordinator at the Faculty of Science and Technology, expressed the hope that the day had provided visitors with both inspiration and information about practical scientific working methods.

“It’s great to see so many upper-secondary students learning about the research conducted at the faculty. I hope we had some future researchers in the audience.”